Hacking Is my DS bricked?

[eastbayarb]

Ok I have a G6 lite and passcard 3. My friend who has neither (he may be getting a g6 lite soon) wanted me to flash his DS Lite with flashme 7.

So I install flashme.ds on the g6 lite and fire it up. Got to the point where it asks you to short the SL1, so my buddy stuck his flashing tool (toothpick with foil) in there and just as the progress bar started filling (got up to 2%), he dropped the flashing tool out and he accidentally turned off the DS Lite.

Problem is now that even when doing the recovery mode (holding start+select+A+B, then turning on the power to the DS lite (nothing in the DS slot, flashme.ds is the only thing on the g6 as of now), the top screen on the DS says "TouchPod for G6 flash) and the bottom part just shows an icon for the flashme.ds file, but NONE OF THE BUTTONS WORKS!

Does this mean the DS Lite is bricked? Any way to recover it? I even tried to use the recovery method with nothing in teh DS or GBA slot.

 

[evilreddot]

I doubt that 2% is enough...so the DS is probably bricked.


(DUN DUN DUUUUUN)


But I've never flashed mine.

 

[Kagaden]

I've heard of people recovering after powering off at 1% so I'd remain optimistic... still if the buttons don't work I'm not sure what to tell ya. I've never heard of a problem like that.

 

[beedog19]

Doesn't sound good, but I'm also lacking in the flashme experience department. The real question is why did he want to flash his dsl without owning a flash cart?

 

[eastbayarb]

He used my G6 4gb Lite to flash

 

[Niijaooh]

Maybe you need the G6 to autostart the flashme file (so you don't need to use the buttons). Does it have the right filetype ending like .nds and not .ds? The supercard does this if its .nds so I guess its the same for G6...

 

[beedog19]

He used my G6 4gb Lite to flash

I understood that part, just didn't understand why he would want to flash if he doesn't own a cart now. No real benefit other than not having to do it later.

 

[chillyp]

If you can get the flashme file to autostart on your G6 its a pretty good chance you'll be ok. You only need the first 100 bytes flashed roughly to have a chance at recovery, so you SHOULD be ok.

It might be worth trying to boot with the Passcard in the DS slot even if you are going with a recovery.

Otherwise, I hope you learned your lesson about fucking with your firmware and good luck getting a refund!

 

[WishCow]

You can still recover it if the flashme's recovery mode does not work.
You need a working ds lite, and do the swap bios chips trick. I think it's documented somewhere on scdev.org.

In a nutshell:
You have to load up the flashme installer on the working DS lite, after it's loaded you pull out the bios chip, and put the failed DS's bios chip in it, flash it and done, put back the Bios chip.
BUT DO RESEARCH ON THIS BEFORE TRYING IT, I haven't done it, and my instructions may not be accurate.

 

[outphase]

Try having only the flashme.nds on the g6. I've never used recovery mode with the g6, but it works on the m3.

edit: Just tried using A+B+Select+Start with the G6... turns out the g6 will freeze at the "Please waiting..." part of boot up. You should research the way to switch BIOS chips if you don't have another flashcard on hand

He used my G6 4gb Lite to flash


I understood that part, just didn't understand why he would want to flash if he doesn't own a cart now. No real benefit other than not having to do it later.

maybe he wanted to play download play when the topic creator was sending with the g6

 

[martin88]

Another downside of G6 Lite: not able to use flashme's fail-safe mode. Noted.

 

[outphase]

Another downside of G6 Lite: not able to use flashme's fail-safe mode. Noted.

Why are you trying to mark every downside of the card? Promote the EZ4?

edit: I just thought of a quick fix. Downgrade your G6's firmware to a version such as v4.0 beta or anything that didn't make the "please wait" type screen show up.

 

[martin88]

Because I'm getting a G6 Lite and I want to know its pros and cons.

G6 Lite not working with flashme's fail-safe mode is important to someone getting their first flashcart.

Edit: Tried it on EZ4, fail-safe mode works fine.

 

[eastbayarb]

I will try downgrading my g6's firmware to a lower version (where can I get lower firmware versions for a chinese g6?)

Niijaooh, how would I get the flashme file to autboot? The file name is flashme.nds and it is in the root dir of my g6 lite. I have also tried droaggining and dropping it into the nds dir on my g6 and using the software to put it on my g6.

Although this is irrelavent to our dilemma, to those wondering, my friend used my g6 to flash his ds lite so he could have it ready for the g6 that he might get

 

[Falkentyne]

Outphase is both right but also a bit wrong

Flashing to the old firmware (like the 4.0 beta english/chinese f/w) that didn't do that "please wait" screen DOES give you button control after you do the failsafe key combo.

However........
attempting to *run* the flash file gives a nice white screen. If you boot the NDS up normally, the file runs correctly.

I see no workaround for this. The file *should* run when booting with the workaround combo on a non bricked DSL, right?

Outphase, any ideas so we can save this person's bricked DS without a BIOS swap?

(if I had known any of this, I *never* would have flashed my DS. Thank god I used an insulated tool...)

 

[outphase]

My "solution" was just a hypothetical while I'm at work. I assumed he had 1 working DS which he could use for reflashing the firmware. I'll look into it when I get home.

It's a good idea to have a contingency plan in case things do go wrong. I have an xrom that doesn't work even if i change the battery so I use that as a back up flashme cart

edit: Just a thought, if there is no reasonable solution outside of chip swapping (which wouldn't even work with the G6 as it stands since it uses recovery), you should check out the gbadev.org forums, they have a flash equipment location thread with people from different areas. Find someone near you and arrange a meet-up so you can recover your DS.

 

[WishCow]

Why souldn't the chip swapping trick work?

 

[outphase]

the idea behind chip swapping is that you would switch out chips with a working flashed DS. You would then use the recovery method described to reflash the "bricked" firmware chip. Since this isn't working with the g6 using any conventional method, it won't work.

 

[lenselijer]

get a supercard minisd and get it fixed, the ds lite of a friend went off at 1% and just restarted in recovery mode and flashed to 100%. It is true that some ds lites have a higher risk of bricking.

 

[Falkentyne]

I think someone should contact the G6 team and ask if they can release an update which will allow the G6L to run flashers or other programs in flashme's recovery mode. This would help a lot of people. (get mailing!)

I think the G6L is using some feature of the firmware, which is not present in recovery mode, which would explain both why the G6 will hang after trying to run any program in recovery mode (on the older firmware without 'please waiting...' and hangs on boot on the newer firmware.

(I also bet the reason the G6 freezes on the menu in recovery mode on the G6 firmwares which have the "please waiting...." screen is because it's accessing (again) parts of the firmware which are not working in that mode....e.g. Battery readout and the real time clock, etc.)